{
  "family": "fire",
  "sample_count": 1,
  "category": "ransomware",
  "description": "<h3>Executive Summary</h3>\nFire (often detected generically as Virus.Win32.Fire or Trojan.Fire) represents an older class of malicious software that exhibits classic virus or worm-like behavior. While less common in modern, financially motivated ransomware attacks, \"Fire\" variants are primarily destructive or disruptive, designed to rapidly propagate across local networks and corrupt local file systems or disrupt system stability.\n\n<h3>Infection Vector and Technical Capabilities</h3>\nThe Fire family typically propagates through older, less secure methods, such as infecting executable files on removable media (USB drives), exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities in legacy SMB protocols (like older worms), or via malicious email attachments.\n\nUpon execution, Fire variants focus on disruption and propagation:\n<ul>\n<li><strong>File Infection (Parasitic):</strong> True \"virus\" variants of Fire attempt to append their malicious code to legitimate executable files (`.exe`, `.scr`, `.dll`) on the local hard drive and mapped network shares. When the legitimate program is run, the virus code executes first.</li>\n<li><strong>Destructive Payloads:</strong> Some older variants carry destructive payloads triggered on specific dates, which may involve overwriting sector data on the hard drive, corrupting critical system files, or continuously forcing the system to reboot.</li>\n<li><strong>Network Propagation:</strong> Worm-like variants aggressively scan the local subnet for open, unauthenticated file shares or legacy vulnerabilities to copy themselves and execute laterally.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h3>Threat Assessment</h3>\nWhile largely mitigated by modern OS architecture and updated antivirus signatures, a localized outbreak of a Fire virus can cause significant operational disruption. The parasitic infection of legitimate executables can render critical business applications unusable, and network scanning can cause internal denial-of-service (DoS) conditions.\n\n<h3>Incident Response and Remediation</h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Network Segmentation:</strong> Immediately isolate infected subnets to halt the worm-like lateral propagation and prevent the infection of mapped network drives.</li>\n<li><strong>Specialized Antivirus Remediation:</strong> Unlike trojans, which can simply be deleted, parasitic viruses require specialized AV routines to \"disinfect\" the host files—stripping the malicious code while leaving the legitimate executable intact. If disinfection fails, the files must be restored from clean backups.</li>\n<li><strong>Legacy Vulnerability Patching:</strong> Investigate how the malware propagated. The outbreak strongly indicates the presence of unpatched legacy systems or overly permissive internal file shares that must be immediately secured.</li>\n</ul>",
  "cta": "Published by the SystemHelpdesk team.",
  "aliases": [
    "Virus.Win32.Fire",
    "Worm.Fire",
    "Trojan.Fire"
  ],
  "enrichment_level": "expert-seo",
  "faq": [
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What is Fire and what threat category does it belong to?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Fire is classified as a Ransomware. Documented across security telemetry, it is engineered to execute unauthorized operations, establish persistent footholds on target endpoints, and facilitate malicious campaigns targeting enterprise and individual environments."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "How does Fire establish persistence and evade defensive controls?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Fire typically establishes persistence through registry run keys, scheduled tasks, or service installations, while evading signature-based antivirus solutions through code obfuscation, memory injection, or anti-analysis sandbox checks."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What are the essential incident response steps for mitigating a Fire compromise?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Security teams responding to Fire should immediately isolate affected endpoints from the network, perform memory triage to capture volatile forensic artifacts, audit registry and startup persistence mechanisms, revoke exposed user credentials, and restore systems from verified, clean backups."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What cryptographic algorithms and file targeting techniques does Virus.Win32.Fire employ during execution?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Virus.Win32.Fire typically leverages hybrid cryptographic architectures combining symmetric stream or block ciphers (such as AES-256 or ChaCha20) for rapid file encryption with asymmetric algorithms (such as RSA-2048 or Curve25519) to securely protect the session keys. It aggressively targets sensitive file extensions including corporate documents, databases, virtual disks, and backups while systematically executing commands to delete Volume Shadow Copies (vssadmin delete shadows /all /quiet) and disable system recovery options."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "Are decryptors available for Virus.Win32.Fire, and what is the recommended recovery procedure?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Decryption availability for Virus.Win32.Fire depends on whether security researchers or law enforcement (such as the No More Ransom initiative) have recovered the master private keys or discovered flaws in its key generation routines. Victims should never pay the extortion demand, as payment fuels criminal operations without guaranteeing file restoration. The recommended recovery procedure entails isolating infected hosts, conducting forensic disk imaging, identifying the root access vector, and restoring validated systems from immutable offline backups."
      }
    }
  ],
  "faq_count": 5,
  "mitre_attack": [
    "T1059",
    "T1485",
    "T1091"
  ],
  "cisa_advisory": null,
  "last_updated": "2026-10-15",
  "type": "Virus / Worm",
  "target_industries": [
    "Healthcare",
    "Critical Infrastructure",
    "Enterprise"
  ],
  "motivation": "Financial Extortion",
  "threat_actors": [
    "Unknown / Cybercriminal"
  ],
  "target_geographies": [
    "Global"
  ],
  "attack_stage": [
    "defense_evasion",
    "impact"
  ],
  "ecosystem": [
    "windows_pe"
  ],
  "is_emerging": false,
  "mitre_attack_detail": [
    {
      "id": "T1059",
      "name": "Command and Scripting Interpreter",
      "tactic": "Execution"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1485",
      "name": "Data Destruction",
      "tactic": "Impact"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1091",
      "name": "Replication Through Removable Media (The core propagation mechanism using autorun.inf)",
      "tactic": "Lateral Movement"
    }
  ],
  "containment_steps": [
    "Immediately isolate affected host(s) from the internal network (disconnect physical Ethernet and disable Wi-Fi/Bluetooth) to prevent Fire from spreading laterally or encrypting network-attached storage (NAS) and shared SMB volumes.",
    "Preserve volatile system memory (RAM capture) on a representative endpoint before attempting a reboot or power-down, as Fire symmetric encryption keys or uncompiled payload components may still reside in memory.",
    "Audit process execution logs and terminate active scripting interpreters (e.g. PowerShell, CMD, WScript) or commands executing 'vssadmin.exe delete shadows' or 'wbadmin' used by Fire to inhibit recovery.",
    "Investigate the initial compromise vector (such as exposed RDP instances, spearphishing attachments, or vulnerable edge gateways) and enforce an immediate credential reset for all compromised Active Directory accounts.",
    "Restore critical assets and databases exclusively from verified, air-gapped, or immutable offline backups once the Fire binary and related persistence hooks are eradicated."
  ],
  "what_to_avoid": [
    "Do not restart or power cycle infected systems prematurely; doing so destroys volatile RAM encryption keys and may trigger bootloader locking logic embedded in Fire.",
    "Avoid negotiating or paying the extortion demand without prior forensic evaluation and consultation with incident response specialists, as payment does not guarantee data recovery.",
    "Do not connect clean backup drives or external storage to the affected network until Fire eradication is completely verified."
  ],
  "target_platforms": [
    "Windows 11",
    "Windows 10",
    "Windows Server 2022",
    "Windows Server 2019"
  ]
}